Over the last couple of years, many schools have found themselves making accommodations for students who test positive for the COVID-19 virus, moving them into vacant on campus “quarantine dorms” or housing them off campus in hotel rooms, while still providing them with their daily meals.

For Sonoma State, students have been less than impressed about the accommodations the school has given them when faced with a positive COVID-19 test.

Nico Schwartz, an Early Childhood Major, had a lot to say about her unforgettable quarantine experience. “They didn’t provide us with meals, or any resources at all for that matter, besides a roll of toilet paper and a towel for the week. We only had an hour to pack up anything we had, including food,” said Schwartz. 

Students who were unaware of not being provided food, were left to be hungry unless they were able to afford the hefty food delivery bill, or have friends bring them meals. 

Most college students, do not have the funds to order takeout and get food delivered to them on a daily basis, which is what many students in the quarantine dorms found to be their only option, “We were told we could Instacart if necessary, and more than anything it isn’t very affordable for a college student,” Schwartz said. 

Many campuses have meal plan options for students in quarantine, and have meals delivered to them throughout the day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With this not being the case for SSU students in quarantine, it became a struggle for some students to provide meals for themselves while in isolation. 

With no meal accommodations from the school, students have been forced to spend upwards of $70 a day, ordering food from off campus restaurants if they did not pack food to bring with them for their quarantine period. “I couldn’t afford to have food delivered to me on a daily basis,” Schwartz said. “So a couple days a week, my friends who weren’t quarantining brought me something.”

Bigger schools like NYU, are being called out for the less than adequate quarantine meals they are providing to students who tested positive for COVID-19. However, students who have quarantined at SSU have expressed they would have gladly taken any meal provided by the school, as they were not told they would have to live off of only the few snacks they choose to bring with them, which a lot of the time, was not much. 

“I saw people post videos of their quarantine meals at their schools and they had like three course meals, and sufficient resources,” a less than impressed Schwartz said. “And Sonoma had absolutely nothing.” 

Plenty of students rely on their meal plan at school to get most of their food and nutrition. When it is no longer provided, things can be tough. “I just ate what I had, which was oatmeal and bananas. I lost about 10 pounds within those two weeks,” Schwartz explained. 

Students are already in a less than ideal situation when in quarantine and worrying about how they are going to feed themselves for two weeks should not be as worrisome as it has been. Food is a very personal thing to everyone, and students already worrying about contracting COVID-19 should not have to stress about if they will  be able to eat everyday. 

As universities scramble to accommodate for this new reality COVID-19 has brought us, it is understandable that there will be some bumps in the road. But not having meals at all, has had some students struggling in more ways than they should have.